The Rexburg Chamber of Commerce will be hosting the annual Farmer Merchant Banquet at Madison High School on April 24 starting at 6 p.m.

“It’s a really cool event where we’re celebrating the farmers and the businesses, and just extraordinary people and extraordinary community members and their businesses,” said Becca Stucki, Chamber of Commerce director of events.

According to Stucki, this event is a time-honored Rexburg tradition.

“It’s been going for over 80 years,” Stucki said. “It’s a tradition in town, just to celebrate farmer of the year, business person of the year.”

Stucki said that it will consist of a dinner, an awards show and a silent and live auction. The winners were announced on Instagram on March 28.

“We give out awards, things like business person of the year, woman in business, and then also things like customer service award,” Stucki said. “There’s 15 awards that’ll go out that night, and then we have a really nice dinner and we do a live and a silent auction.”

Stucki said that both auctions will feature a variety of prizes for people to win and take home.

“Our auctioneer, he does it for a living, so he talks really fast like all the movies,” Stucki said. “And then the silent auction, where obviously, you can just do it on your own. We’ve got really cool prizes. Last year, there were cruise tickets, paddle boards, canoes, like big, cool prizes. This year we already have an outdoor pizza oven, we’ve got a black stone griddle and then a ton of gift cards and gift baskets that are going to be full of all sorts of fun things.”

According to Stucki, planning the event takes a lot of time and coordinated effort from Chamber of Commerce members.

“We have a committee of our members of the chamber that help us,” Stucki said. “I have one of our committee members who’s going to help us get stories about people, another committee member who’s helping us make sure that the food is all set, getting our catering, everything scheduled.”

Stucki said that most of her work as director of events is to make programs, auction booklets and plan the assigned seating.

“Just a lot of different steps to make sure every little piece fits together,” Stucki said.

Overall, Stucki hopes that people who attend can have fun.

“We’re hoping that it’ll just be a lot of fun celebrating these people, so if you know someone that won an award and want to come celebrate them, then that’s awesome,” Stucki said. “It’s just a fun night to come and support the community and then hopefully go away with a cool prize.”

Tickets are available for purchase online until April 13. Visit the Chamber of Commerce website for more information.

Featured image: This year’s winners were announced on Instagram. Photo Credit: Rexburg Chamber of Commerce Instagram